WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A short but fiery speech made on the floor of the House of Representatives has raised the hopes of patient safety advocates across the nation.

Rep. Bruce Braley, a second-term Democrat from Iowa, gave a last-minute speech about medical errors moments before the House voted on the health reform bill earlier this month.

Braley, 52, a trial lawyer who specializes in malpractice, said he had two minutes to prepare his speech. As he spoke, he was taunted by Republicans shouting "trial lawyer." But Braley impressed Helen Haskell, whose son died from a medical error.

"I was very pleased that somebody was standing up for patient safety. I thought the heckling was unbelievable," said Haskell, of South Carolina. Her son Lewis Blackman, 15, died in 2000 after a minor surgical procedure.

Haskell called Braley's office the next day to thank him.

Patient safety activists are cautiously optimistic that Braley may be the champion they need for their cause. "He's definitely an emerging leader and he seems to be very passionate about [patient safety]" said Lisa McGiffert, who heads Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project.

"Who will speak for the patients?" Braley said in his House speech as Republicans jeered him. He quoted the Institute of Medicine report, saying, "They told us the most significant way to reduce the cost of medical malpractice is to emphasize patient safety by reducing the number of preventable medical errors."

While some members of Congress have led efforts to increase the public reporting of hospital-acquired infections, few have embraced the larger issue of medical errors. Nearly 200,000 Americans die each year from errors made during their medical care and from infections they picked up in the hospital. The lack of progress in reducing errors was the subject of a Hearst Newspapers series that can be read at www.deadbymistake.com.

"I am so grateful to Hearst publications for their Dead by Mistake series to put the human face on the problems that bring you all here today," Braley said to the audience at the Consumers Union conference. Braley said he has passed the series to other members of Congress to bolster support for patient safety initiatives in the health reform bill.

Reaction from Connecticut lawmakers was supportive for Braley.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, said in a phone interview that Braley might have been an unusual choice for the debate because he is a plaintiffs' lawyer. "It was a very raucous moment," Himes recalled, adding that the fact that hundreds of thousands who die every year get lost in the national debate on tort reform.

"If it were kept as a category, it would be the sixth-highest form of death," Himes said. Solutions range from low tech hand-washing for doctors, to the $20-billion investment in digitizing medical records to ease the flow of information among health care providers.

Himes said the pending health care-reform legislation in Congress would provide incentives to hospitals that are achieving particularly good outcomes.

"Re-admission is a huge problem with chronic illness," Himes said. "Hospitals with fewer will be rewarded financially. In the general discussion of outcomes and tort reform, there is a big argument as to the cost of things like defensive medicine."

Himes pointed out the model set by airline pilots who can report safety hazards to the FAA without affecting their careers. "It would be interesting discussion to encourage doctors to report errors in exchange for relief from some form of litigation," Himes said. "Getting accurate reporting would be good at the micro level and the system level."

U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5, who also was on the House floor during Braley's speech, said that the issue is no secret. "We've known for a long time that our legal system alone can't control the problem of medical errors," he said in a statement. "We need to focus on implementing best practices in all corners of our medical system as the primary means of ensuring patient safety. I know the medical community is committed to continual improvement to reduce these errors."

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said that cutting down on errors is very important. "Patient safety must be a core component of a 21st-century health care system," DeLauro said in a statement, recalling that nearly 10 years ago a landmark study indicated that more people die each year from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, and AIDS combined.

"Unfortunately, as the 'Dead by Mistake' project reminds us, horrific medical errors still happen every day in this country," DeLauro said. "Patients deserve to be safe when they are in the hospital, and they deserve to know when medical errors occur and what is being done to prevent them in the future. And we must promote safer systems of care and a commitment to patient safety at every level of the health care system."

Consumers Union invited Braley to speak at its conference on patient safety in Washington, D.C., last week.

Braley grew up on a small farm in Iowa. His father was seriously injured in a fall from a grain elevator and his mother went back to work as a teacher to support the family. His father eventually went into the insurance business, while Braley began working in his teens to help the family.

He was a successful lawyer in Waterloo, Iowa, when he ran for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006. His victory gave Democrats control of Iowa's First Congressional District for the first time since 1992.

Braley founded and chairs the Populist Caucus, which is a congressional group devoted to economic issues of the middle class.

"When my colleagues chose to attack me by screaming "trial lawyer, trial lawyer" it wasn't affecting me in the least," Braley told advocates at the Consumers Union conference. "I was thinking of people that need someone to stand up for them when it comes to important issues of patient safety." Braley said he fought for an initiative in the House health reform bill that would require Medicare to revamp its reimbursement system from a fee-for-service model to a pay-for-performance model. He believes it will reduce errors and improve quality, and he said he hopes to sponsor more legislation to improve patient safety.

"Unless medical consumers know that they have a system that is going to protect them, that is going to give them access to information to make them informed consumers," Braley said, "we will have missed a great opportunity to transform our system of health care delivery."

Staff writer Ken Dixon contributed to this report from the State Capitol in Hartford.